Shikhar Dhawan's breathtaking 248 off 150 balls against South Africa A helped India A qualify for the final and all eyes will be on the left-handed opener again when the Cheteshwar Pujara-led side take on a confident Australia A team led by Aaron Finch in the final at Pretoria on Wednesday, 14th August 2013. Australia A made it through to the final with ease, winning 3 games out of 4 while India A, who have been up and down in this tournament so far, made it to the last game with two wins from 4 matches. These two sides will be eager to put in their best performance in what promises to be a yet another high-scoring encounter at the LC de Villiers Stadium.

Previous meetings in this series: Despite coming close to beating Australia A in both their round-robin matches, India A ended up on the losing side. In the first encounter between these two sides on August 8, Australia A posted a formidable 298 and in reply India looked all set to reach the total before losing wickets in a heap and ending up 8 runs short. In their second meeting on August 11, Australia A batted first again and put a sizeable 310 on board before bowling out India A for 285.

India A: India's batting line-up boasts a host of players with international repute like Dhawan, Rohit Sharma, Cheteshwar Pujara, Suresh Raina, Murali Vijay and Dinesh Karthik while Ambati Rayudu, who recently made his ODI debut, is also part of the team. Dhawan has been the most prolific of the lot in this series, having accumulated 348 runs in three games including a double ton and a fifty. Skipper Pujara has also been in good form, having scored 198 runs at an average of 66 including a ton and a half-century. Rohit and Raina have also been pretty consistent, having scored five half-centuries between them while Rayudu too has done a decent job. However, India A's main problem has been that these players haven't stayed till the end, especially against Australia A, which led to those losses. Pujara will be hoping that they will not face a similar situation in the final as his side will be looking to finish off the tri-series in style.

The bowlers have not quite been able to match the efforts of the batsmen on pitches that have been ideal for stroke-making. Thrice they ended up conceding in excess of 300 which resulted in defeats in two games. In their last game, South Africa A ended up scoring close to 400 although India A prevailed as their mammoth 433 proved to be sufficient in the end. Raina is the only one amongst the bowlers to have an economy of less than 6 while Shahbaz Nadeem, who has picked up the most number of wickets, has the next-best economy rate. The likes of Stuart Binny, Dhawan and Mohammed Shami have been amongst the wickets although they have gone for a few as well. India's major concerns with the ball is that bowlers like Jaydev Unadkat, Parvez Rasool and Siddharth Kaul have conceded in excess of 7-an-over while the death bowling performance has not been all that great. The team management will be hoping for a more disciplined showing from the bunch.

Australia A: Shaun Marsh and Glenn Maxwell have been Australia A's leading scorers in this series while skipper Finch too has been quite consistent. All three have a century and a fifty against their names and they occupy the second, third and the fourth spots for the highest run-scorers in this tri-series. Australia A will have their hopes pinned on Maxwell, who has taken a liking to the Indian bowling with blistering knocks of 145* off 79 and 93 off 56 in the two games against the Pujara-led side. Marsh, meanwhile, has been a solid presence at the top, and with Finch providing him good support, the Australia top order looks well settled. It is the middle order will slightly worry Finch and his team as the likes of Nic Maddinson, Alex Doolan and Mitchell Marsh have not been in good scoring form. Australia A will be hoping that they also come to the party as they look to finish unbeaten against India A.

Australia A's seamers have done a decent job in this series, with Josh Hazlewood leading the top wicket-takers chart and Moises Henriques, placed second on the list of most wickets, giving him good support. Gurinder Sandhu too has been amongst the wickets and with Nathan Coulter-Nile and Pat Cummins also present in the line-up, the Aussie pack attack is a formidable one. Maxwell has done a decent job as far as spin bowling is concerned although he would be hoping for more support from Fawad Ahmed, who has not had a good series so far, being the only regular bowler in the team with an economy of more than 6. Australia A will be looking forward to a strong performance from the bowlers, which is necessary to keep the power-packed Indian batting at bay.

Quotes:

This will remain one of my favourite matches because I scored 200 for the first time in a 50-over game. Unfortunately it didn't come live on the television but that's fine because I loved batting: Shikhar Dhawan, after his match-winning double century against South Africa.

When we arrived here this was our goal so I'm really happy we have come so far. I think between us and India we have played more consistently well and we're looking forward to tomorrow: Australia captain, Aaron Finch is looking forward to the final.